The present invention relates to providing an air exhaust and water drain apparatus for an air conditioner, and particularly to providing an air exhaust and water drain apparatus adapted to an indoor unit of a separable air conditioner, for discharging drain water collected in a pan assembly during operation of the air conditioner, as well as exhausting room air to ventilate a room.
A conventional air conditioner, especially an indoor unit of a separable air conditioner usually mounted on one wall in a room of a house, is provided with a separate drain hose for processing condensing water, but it was impossible to mount a ventilating unit in such an air conditioner and so it could not exchange indoor foul air with outdoor fresh air.
A typical indoor separable air conditioner unit is disclosed in Japan Utility Model Laid Open Publication No. Sho 61-63636. The unit comprises a fan for intaking outdoor air, another fan for exhausting room air externally to outdoors, a heat-exchanger for cooling air intaken by the first-mentioned fan, a duct mounted to direct air towards outdoors, for ventilating a room, through at least one fan operation including intaking and exhaust, and a drain duct arranged on one side of the duct to drain water from a pan which collects condensing water below the heat-exchanger. Therefore, it is known that the unit must be provided with at least two ducts, for example an air exhaust duct and a water drain duct, respectively, for discharging room foul air and condensing water to the exterior. Furthermore, the unit usually has disadvantages due to the freezing of water collected in the pan, which is mounted adjacent to a heat-exchanger. Freezing causes the pan to be ruptured into freezing and condensing water can flush over the pan.
Also, a conventional air conditioner of a one unit-type, such as a window-type air conditioner, has an air exhaust duct and a water drain duct. A typical example is described in Japan Utility Model Laid-Open No. Sho 60-180938, wherein a ventilating fan exchanges room air by its intaking and/or exhausting operations between indoors and outdoors, a heat-exchanger cools intaken air, a pan collects condensing water from the heat-exchanger and a water drain passage discharges condensing water collected in the pan casing. However, the unit does not have means for blocking air exhaust and is maintained in an air-exhausting exhausting condition even when exhausting of air is not required, thereby reducing the heat-exchanging efficiency. It is also noted that the unit must have at least two ducts, respectively, for the air intaking/exhausting passage and the water drain passage, and the distance between the pan casing and the ventilating fan is relatively too great to prevent the freezing of condensing water in the pan casing mounted adjacent to the heat-exchanger.